So, I of course think this is silly. But here’s a claim that living in high-rises — that is, buildings with elevators — is bad for people’s physical and mental health: In the midst of a Vancouver civic election where housing is a hot issue,… Read More
All posts tagged “mid-rise”
🙌 La Bovida
Paris 1e
Built form and climate impact
Building height and density are not one and the same. You can have tall buildings configured in a low-density way (think post-war towers in the park). And you can have low/mid-rise buildings configured in a high-density way (think Paris and Barcelona). This is one of… Read More
Districts versus spines
I was recently having a discussion on Twitter about midrise buildings and architect Dermot Sweeny raised the important distinction between creating “spines” and creating “districts.” What he was referring to with “spines” was the way in which Toronto is intensifying its “Avenues” with midrise buildings.… Read More
Speed and simplicity in Vancouver
This is a good follow-up to my recent post about the barriers to developing mid-rise here in Toronto. I have just learned (thanks to Michael Mortensen) that Vancouver has proposed some specific zoning changes that are intended to increase the supply of new rental housing.… Read More
Releasing the shackles on mid-rise development
I love mid-rise buildings. I think they are an incredibly livable scale of housing, which is why I am looking forward to moving into Junction House when we begin occupancies next year. But as we have talked about many times before on the blog, the… Read More
The most unremarkable streets in Toronto
Within Toronto’s urban structure you have regular streets and you have things known as “Avenues.” (This is among a bunch of other stuff such as Centres and Employment Areas.) What this Avenue designation does is tell you that it may be a suitable location for… Read More
Building great mid-rise buildings
Alex Bozikovic is right to praise Gairloch’s upcoming development in the Junction. It’s a beautiful project and it’s exciting to see so many architecturally significant projects in one neighborhood — either completed or to be completed. I’m thinking specifically of DUKE Condos (TAS and Quadrangle),… Read More
Two-up, two-down
Feargus O’Sullivan is doing a series in CityLab right now on the “home designs” that define four European cities: London, Berlin, Amsterdam, and Paris. The first one is on London’s classic “two-up, two-down” design, which refers to a two storey home with a living room… Read More
Paris and Vancouver population densities compared
In this January 2018 report from the Fraser Institute, they pegged the average population density of Paris to be about 21,067 inhabitants per square kilometer (2014 population year). It is the second densest city in their report after Hong Kong, but the densest in Europe.… Read More